Second Age Research

[Orsi]

I don't know if the devs or anybody know this, but if you're looking for most T2A patch notes using the Internet Archive, you may want to look through http://www.owo.com . Even more specific, http://updates.owo.com, the Update Center.
That was the original Ultima Online OSI website before it switched over to uo.com . OWO stood for Origin Worlds Online, which I believe was the company's name as they made UO.

I've checked the archive and they have a few more pages archived for those years leading and during T2A.

[Derrick]

Thanks Scythe, these are great resources. I spent most of the morning myself on these pages researching the Pre-Cast issue and many other details have come from there when we needed to nail down a specific period.

Another great resource is Wayback Machine which has many old websites including stratics archived.

[Orsi]

Ya I've been using that site with old websites that I remember used to post copies of patch notes. Things like Crossroads of Britannia, Uo.Stratics.com (there was an older url I can't remember for it), Moongates.com/uj.exe etc...

If you find any good sites with the web archiver, could you please post them up here?

Crossroads of Britannia - cob.xrgaming.net
Aurics Moongates - http://www.moongates.com
Stratics - uo.stratics.com

A lot of websites also had address changes which if we discovered, could probably bring up a lot of information pre-2000. Most of the info I find is limited to LATE 1999 and sooner. I think if we keep it up and post update, we can find a lot more official info from Oct 1998 - Nov 1999.

[Dupre[THG]]

keep up the good work fellow

[Orsi]

Found the old url for Stratics during 98-99.

Http://uoss.stratics.com

Found a couple interesting links you may want to check out...

Monster Stats
http://web.archive.org/web/199904221832 ... /abyss.htm

Colored Plate - not only proof that I was right about colored plate, but goes on to say colored plate was the ONLY plate you could buy from vendors
http://web.archive.org/web/199910021248 ... rplate.htm

Meditation
http://web.archive.org/web/199905081804 ... dguide.htm

...more to be added soon

[Derrick]

Sycthe, great resources. Thanks, especially on the colored plate and meditation both of which has been in question.

Note on the colored plate page there is no reference to player made colors and it's explicitly stated "There are, at present, exactly 31 hues of plate armor in UO. Hue 0 (clear) is bright silver armor players made, and monsters have as (generally magical) treasure." This page is pre-colored-ore, but it doesn't disprove or prove these colors being available from vendors during the era. The page was archived on Oct 1999, but stratics has a lot of pre-t2a info on their site at that time.

[Orsi]

In my search,I found that npc merchants that sell armor, blacksmiths, and armorers, sell only colored plate, unless players have sold them player-crafted silver armor. The difficult part is, they sell a random mixture of colors, and the discriminating buyer has to travel all over the land to find the right color on the right merchant.

It's the second paragraph under "The Great Search". I'll post this in my original thread about colored ore just in case anyone doesn't check it out here.

[Orsi]

Skills Output
http://web.archive.org/web/199910011351 ... output.txt
Maybe you'd find a use for this?

Combat Data
http://web.archive.org/web/199910090018 ... combat.htm
Very detailed, even having the sequence in which damage is calculated.

Moongates
http://web.archive.org/web/199910030851 ... ongate.htm
Simply for my own archive

Spellbook Appraisal
http://web.archive.org/web/199902020519 ... llbook.htm
I saw a post about spellbooks not showing the amount of spells inside them. This is true to the era, plus this shows how much the book is appraised for it you use the item ID skill.

Stratics House of Commons Logs
http://uohoc.stratics.com/
Can read discussions on every update from early 1998 to today from the developers of Ultima.

Ultima Online WarCry forums
http://uo.warcry.com/forums/index/275?page=8
This page, plus page 9, has some archives of patch notes from early 2000, till roughly May of 1999.



*******************************************
The Purple Guardians of Honor
http://www.thehonorempire.net/uo/news/archive.shtml
Archived News site. Probably the most informative patch notes from the end of 1998 and on I have found. almost every patch/publish is copied and pasted on the dates they were published.
*******************************************

[Orsi]

Speedcasting
http://www.gatecentral.com/ultima/wisse ... ng_l12.php
Seems like this was a rough outline of the first time 'speedcasting' was around. Original poster thought the delay between any spell being cast was 2.2secs. Original home url is http://www.gatecentral.com/ultima/index.html and the page dates all the way back to 1998 at some points.

[Derrick]

Keep it coming man, but I'm having a hard time keeping up with you. I'm still reviewing Mediation

Thanks again for these links.